


Common Phenomena

by Twitter_hikari



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Background Relationships, Gen, Ghosts, Haus History, Magical Realism, Off-screen Relationship(s), Supernatural Elements, Zombies, but not graphic, possibly mangled cultural references, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-03 10:05:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8708284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twitter_hikari/pseuds/Twitter_hikari
Summary: "When the supernatural is the norm, it takes a lot to ruffle the feathers of everyday people. We call these Common Phenomena."-excerpt from A Common Phenomenon, a thesis on the progression of supernatural occurrences in everyday life.---by J. Johnson





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In which I, J. Johnson, take you through this world via snippets of my thesis rough draft, and additional commentary of the world, society and of my fellow team mates.

So, it’s a pretty common phenomena, the undead and restless dead upsurgings. Well, depending on where you live. There's some differences.

It all starts with your regions. Like, Eastern United States have all these ghosts from the revolutionary war. Loads of not so good energy that keep the ghosts where they are at. Most of the time they don’t do a whole lot, but you have the occasional necromancer who tries to harness the energy. (And you get this surge of vicious poltergeists, and that’s a hateful day of work for whichever poor Enforcer schmuck gets stuck handling that SNAFU).

Down in the South you have bunches of slave ghosts and zombies. There’s just bunches of stuff up and down the whole area affected by the Civil war, like Gettysburg? So. Much. fodder. The Enforcers have a permanent base there for keeping the bullheaded idiots from getting in too deep. The ghosts are particularly plentiful around the Civil War reenactment troups. It is a matter of pride to have the ghosts of dead soldiers bickering about how things are all wrong about the staging of this battle or that skirmish. 

The West is has some decent lore base too. Like, south west? You have all the Traditions from the Hispanics. Well, it’s not like undead care about country lines. You have La Llrona, and the Chupacabra and and the ghosts of old cattle rustlers that pop up. Arizona has a good tap on the majority of the ghost stuff in Bisbee, Tombstone and Tucson.

California is a mix of whatever people have brought with them. SoCal is def more Hispanic and black influenced, and so on in the other various regions.

~*~

Then you get into the types of urban/suburban/rural measurements.

Like, the cities? You would think that there would be more going on there, what with the muggings gone wrong, rapists and the like. Revenge driven ghosts, yeah? Hah. Wrong. Cities are _clean_. As a _whistle_. If you live around/in a big city, it’s highly unlikely you’ve ever been exposed to an member of the undead unless it was in a carefully contained environment on a field trip, most likely. The Enforces have pretty big hubs there, because they know what a zombie outbreak would do in the middle of a highly urban or suburban area. 

Rural areas have 2-3 uprisings a month and every family has a ghost that keeps everyone in on the local gossip and acts as the general first warning bell. Springtime is the worst, because that’s Apocalypse season, and woe unto the town/family that doesn’t have their Hellmouth Procedures down because you better believe that shit goes down in the spring. It's practically a matter of national holiday.

Now that, my dears, brings us to Samwell University. 

University towns are right in the median of the city and rural areas. They get 1-2 attacks every 3-4 months. At least, that’s unless you have the practice runs done from their sport’s teams. Running the gauntlet is a great way of keeping active, and your exercise going. Nothing like some good cardio. It helps to keep the students in the Invocation 200’s busy and has the benefit of not fucking up the whole town if they get to work out the murderous impulses out.

Samwell University is weird. Like, really weird, even if you think college towns are weird. They haven’t had a single instance of an uprising in the last 15 years, and in the year before that? There were only 2 the entire school year. Samwell has effectively become a Null Spot if you base it around the recent activity. Before that, They had a population of hunters and Thaumic Energists, (magic enthusiasts, energy users, wand wavers what ever you would like to call those who use thaumic energy). The LAX team and SMH team had a bitter rivalry over who had better tactics for the End of Year Gauntlet. It made for quite a decent chunk of finals grades.

~*~

Everyone gets taught the basics. You smack anything that moves when it shouldn’t, and moans instead of talking. Everyone can stammer out some kind of exorcism for ghosts, and if you don’t have some kind of salt on you, then what the hell are you doing outside of the city? And forget the demon exorcisms, unless it’s a small one, then you should be good. Shotguns are standard in most households, but baseball bats are easier to put in the hands of homicidal pre-teens. If you get the right training? Blades are also acceptable.

~*~

Shitty and Nursey come from Andover, which is a pretty decent intercity prep school. They got a good grounding in how to whack things, but they plan on going back to the city after this. Its not a top priority for them to know the ins and outs of how to kill something. That being said, they're on the Hockey team, which is essentially knives on their feet and a stick to whack with. The puck gets going pretty fast too, doesn't it?

Ransom? He’s from Canada. Canada is king of wide open spaces and low percentage of people per square mile. Undead upswells aren’t that big. (When they are, it’s along the variety of Wendigo. Specialized teams there.) Knows his basic survival shit, like run, hide, duck, beat it with fire, (what kid from Canada doesn't?), but that’s it. It's just that he has no time for knowing how to kill if he’s gonna be working on the biology of the zombie and whether they can reverse engineer a cure for recently bitten in a more scientific manner than the spark-ways.

So he ends up with Holster. I mean, the dude’s quasi-trained? SMH does their undead drills and have the face-off with LAX every year, and they are some legen-wait for it-dary D-men, but it's not like Holster is looking to go out and join the nearest group of Enforcers.

However, Holster does a decent job at keeping Ransom’s rear in gear and unbitten when they go to Niagara Falls and to visit Holster’s family in Buffalo. Not that Buffalo isn’t patrolled, but they stop at some pretty divey truck stops on the way, and Holster does not want to try flexing his tiny, tiny reserve of spark to stave off any kind of bite, be it zombi, vampire or lycan.

~*~

Of course, that’s just most people. Otherwise, you have those that got a little bit extra. A spark or something that make whatever they do have a bit more of a kick. Or significant kick, it depends on the person and what they pull from. Thaumic energy is a powerful thing in the hands of someone with even that meager spark. 

If you get really good, you get all the recruitment from the Enforcers, the people who put down the undead for a living. Sometimes its for how fast you can get the Latin out in a high stakes exorcism. Others get in for their exceptional kill scores during a Final Gauntlet.

~*~

Invader Zimms is one of the best Enforcer exorcist team in the North American continent. Bad Bob is the brawn, really good at laying the smack down on whatever it is that they fight against, and Alicia is the brain/spark holder who rededicates the graves that keeps the undead from coming back up. She also does a good line on the buffs for when Bob is fighting. Jack was supposed to have brains+brawn, but something happened with Kent Parson, when they were in the Q, a school for the promising talent.

What ever it was pretty firmly killed his spark and ran to the school that has the held the longest run of undead nullness, Samwell. (Never mind that when his mom went to school there, she was captain of the patrol unit around the school (brah's got issues)). He is firmly in the camp of good at the brawn part, but he really doesn't want to deal with any of it. So he ends up hanging out with Shitty, who, pardon the pun, has really shit brawn capabilities, and Larissa Duan.

~*~

Lardo has a type of Sight. Like, culturally, helping out wandering ghosts is her thing, so she knows the prayers and the incense to burn. Like, those prayers, are pretty effective at helping the ghosts to move on and not wander anymore. Is very low-key about it. The East Coast has some problems with hanging onto the ghosts that really should have been laid to rest years ago. Plus, she’s BFF+ with Shitty, and  good friends with Jack, whom has their own problems with undead. So yeah, she keeps it low-key.

She is knows about powering runes and symbols, dream interpretation and tea leaves are all chill, but she really just wants to be artistic without all these ghosts coming up to her and bugging her about moving on. She and Bittle exchange tips on divination, and how to get the best info from the cryptic druid who manages the Murder Stop n Shop. She and Chow, my replacement goalie, have discussions on the influence culture has in various undead and fighting styles.

Christopher! The Sunshine Child from San Jose! So San Jose, even though it’s a big city, has a surprisingly low number of Enforcers; it doesnt even have a satellite office.   The people in the city mostly take care of themselves and keep everyone else from getting out of line. The high amount of people with Asian nationality have kept a highly traditional way/approach of dealing with the undead. The Chows deal more with jiangshi than zombies or even Western vampires, but their methods are highly adaptable.

Chris is super good at everything. He's a goalie, why wouldn't he be? He took all the spiritual teachings and ran with them, coming up with effective ways to blend old and new together to make this eclectic combat style that focuses on melding traditional chants with modern fighting styles. Good at close combat with stakes and knives.

The family has this bonsai peach tree Xi Wangmu that has been passed down from generations, and made the trip from China with his family. Chris got to take a clipping of it with him to Samwell. He’s been growing this clipping for years. it was a ‘project’ for his mastery test. (His sister is an annoying shit, she got him to sign off on the papers for Mastery when he was in the haze of college applications) (His tree’s name is Sun Wukong, shut up he totally aced his mythology section of the SEC (Slayer/Exorcist Coursework))

So yeah. Chow is an officially registered slayer Exorcist. Keeps a very level head in upsurges or whenever the kid down the road gets into his head that he could be the next necromancer dark lord/lady. 

~*~

Being officially registered in the Enforcer database is a pretty big deal. It means that you have slogged your way through the various layers of bureaucracy to get the stamp of approval. You've passed the tests that measure thaumaturgic levels and physicality. Demonstrated a working knowledge of cultural and/or religious ideology that presents a framework for any given branch of Enforcers. 

Most people that make their way through the SEC in the high school level, don't have the willpower to keep going through at the collegiate levels. Those that do, come from a family background that jump starts that willpower. Those are the ones that started flexing their sparks young, and hunting was practically a family sport.

~*~

William Poindexter is from one of those families. The Poindexter family is very good with the less corporeal forms of the undead. They are Roman Catholic and have this licence for hunting that is basically grandfathered down. Latin was some of the first words out of his mouth, and his mom just sat there and shook her head while his father and uncles laughed. His training is mostly focused on control, ever since the time a ghost took a dive at him and he ended up wreathed in St Elmo’s fire. Uses the St Elmo’s fire in his Salt and Burns. His rosary is a great conductor for the plasma, and it doubles to ward off ghosts he just doesn’t want to deal with.

Even if not all of the Poindexter family is in hunting, there is a very high probability that they are in hunting-adjacent jobs. For example, Will’s got a brother who is a priest, a nun for a sister. He is literally never out of holy water, specially prepared herbs (for hex bags) or blessed lead. Gets the rosary rededicated every time he goes home for holidays because it’s seeing a lot more wear now than it did up in New Hampshire. 

Exorcisms are the Poindexter point. Will thinks that the Winchesters have the right idea with the salt and burn, and the salt in the shotgun has saved his life more than once during his training days. Is a great researcher and is in the process of making a website that is essentially a DIY site that details common household items that can keep any place safe during an upsurge of spectral activity.

 --

Another one of those families are the Bittles, down in Georgia. You have a specter or wight? Call the Bittles. Not sure how the fall harvest is going to turn out? Suzanne will give you a reading in her baking right there on the phone, and then she’ll insist that you come over and grab a loaf or two, or maybe a tart for some of the healing protections. And Dickey looks to be going the same way. Only more. Where Suzanne's only got her little bit of kitchen witchery, Eric has a more physical expression. He gets out and hunts with his spark. This is no passive usage. 

Coach just wants to make sure that Dickey can get the time he needs to work his spark, so he makes sure that the kid is fluent in weaponry. Hunting rifles are their favorite, they’ll go and camp the woods right by the nearest graveyard for when the next idiot teenagers are buzzed enough to raise another undead surge. Coach’s record kills of 70 in the night was blown out of the water the moment he showed Dickey the infrared pointer and the kid went to town with the head shots. Not that Eric isn't capable with other things, it's just that his daddy knows guns the best, and Eric gladly trots off with Katya, his coach, for training with other deadly objects.

When he isn't staking vampires, setting ghosts to rest or training with Katya and Coach, Eric vlogs. There is the baking stuff, but every once in a while, he’ll come out with a video that goes into a playlist titled Practical Defense for Dummies. Covers topics like keeping water bottles full of Holy Water, how packets of salt from restaurants are good for quick warding off specters, how to make crosses and talismans on key-chains that aren’t glaringly obvious. Hex bags and salt lines to prevent ghosts from getting into your home. Easy at-home herbs to grow for smudging and getting rid of excess negative energy. 

His letters of recommendation for college are glowing enough, that he makes the trek up to Arkham, Massachusetts for the campus tour. Somehow manages to side trip it to Samwell, because why not? He falls in love with Faber before the undergrads at Miskatonic University even have a chance to get their tentacles on him.

The Bittles and Phelps are all kinds of famous all over the South, but outside of the area, you have maybe a whisper about blondes that are terrifyingly precise and ‘they camp the cemetery for fun.’  

And the Enforcers are a bit wary around these families. Richard Bittle stayed on their radar for a long while after the thanks, no thanks he gave them in college. Turning out a high school football team with consistently higher than average kill streaks in their collegiate Year End Gauntlet rates rather high on their list of things to keep an eye out for. 

Suzanne Phelps has one of the best sparks for lab work, and if the Enforcers could have her now, she would be disappeared in a heart beat. Now? She smiles at the men and women dressed sharply, listens to them make offers to Richard, to herself. Whirls in to disarm them with blackberry cobbler and ice tea the first time hints of early recruitment are mentioned. Whispers of _he's nothing special_ and   _not suited for field or lab work_ are humming around the suits with every bite of cobbler. 

The higher-ups were threatening termination towards the poor schmucks who didn't listen to Rick when he smiled and said that 'Sue's my partner, I can't leave her behind.' They curse that the thaumaturgic detectors were insufficiently calibrated.

The Enforcer leave without any fuss. The next time that Eric is contacted with offers, he is far away at Samwell, standing on the edge of what is predicted to be the largest upsurge in Samwell history, never mind recent history.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The observations of one Anthony "Tango" Lewis when he accidentally trips one of the most potent memory wards from when Haus was just starting to be Haus.

It wasn't his fault that there was so much to do with the effects that magic had on it's environment. Tony just wanted to get answers to his questions. Asking the sentient objects in question would have been _easy_. The statues outside of Founders, and Wellie the Well in the Lake Quad. Maybe the jock strap in the far shower could have some bearing on this...but nooo. The thesis committee said that his topic had been too broad, and that he needed to narrow it down.

Tony snuck another look at his thesis proposal, hoping that the damning red "Declined" stamped across the paper would have been magically removed. Hah. The young man pouted his way onto the couch relegated to the basement of the Haus. Tony flipped the top sheet back on his proposal. Aaand, nope, still “Declined”. Sinking into the cushions with a sigh, Tony thumped his head against the arm of the couch several times, pretending that it would make some kind of idea pop into his mind.

 _That_ , he squinted at the wall behind the water heater, _was not there before._ The young man scrambled off the couch to trail fingers over the writing on the wall. Yes, right below _Fffffffffuck the LAX bros!!!_ was:

_Watch for ward triggers. **Haus is a lying liar who lies.** Is not. Except for when you hit a trigger.... Don’t hit a trigger._

Ward triggers? Weren’t those the schematics for magical, sentient brownstones? Tony jumped back as his finger brushed against the writing. Nothing happened. Obviously, the ward triggers weren't there. Tony thanked his lucky stars that he hadn't done anything to the ward schematic, and flopped back onto the concrete. A squirm of red and white light slithered out of the wall and appeared to quest about for _some_ thing before _scoot-scooting_  over to the hockey player laying on his back. 

Holy shit, Haus had magic of it's own. Tony inched up and away from the thread until his back was pressed firmly against the couch cushions. When he said that he wanted to interview sentient objects, he hadn't meant being mind probed!

 _SillyTango,youaskIHausanswer!_ and the red thread made contact with Tony's chest.

~*~

Spring C of 2016 ends up being one of the worst upsurges that ever happens. Samwell wasn’t ready for it at all. If it weren't of the sports teams keeping up on their evacuation drills, and the Art students tacking down the major large buildings on campus with the old wards from the 90's, the school would have been overrun until they got some Enforcers on the phone. Said Enforcers ask for access to the student database, filtering through the students for registered Slayer/Exorcists, to _'hold down the fort until we can get there.'_

Several great names are brought up, and the Enforcer techie on the other end of the line is relaying information, and then they hit the Samwell Men's Hockey team.

“We have Christopher Chow of California and William Poindexter from Maine." Silence over the phone lines.

 _"....Hold for a moment please."_ The poor faculty member is left holding the phone for a tense minute.

~*~

_(other end of the phone)_

"Chris Chow? The West Coast darling, up-and-coming Slayer Chow?"

"Yes sir." The phone techie's voice sounds amused.

"And a Poindexter? I thought they were all members of the cloth?!"

Huh, that's a pitch Penelope hadn't though Johnson could reach. "Yessir. Both Exorcist Poindexter and Slayer Chow are enrolled at the University and both compete on the hockey team."

"Well shit. I'm sorry for the mess that campus is going to be. Give me the phone."

~*~

_“Alright ma'am, I have good news and some not bad news. Your hockey team is going to be fine, along with whomever else is with them. In the meantime, I suggest that the students get funneled away from the center of the event, and into buildings that can be warded.  An Enforcer team is enroute to the campus.”_

~*~

Penelope is...bemused. She is seated next to SSA Johnson and doesn’t know why a technomancer/psychometric like herself is being waved down to Greek Row at the Samwell Campus. “Sir, isn’t this where your son went to school?”

Johnson smiled. "One of them, yes. My youngest. He's off doing grad work at one of the Miskatonic satellite campuses. Pull over here." Penelope pulls up to the curb. Losing her glasses, the woman looks out the window. Well now, jaw dropped and helloooo spark.

"Who the hell has the thaumic energy here on tap?" Trembling hands hover over the door handle. Johnson is frowning faintly at the blue lines that crisscross over the entirety of Greek Row. According to Sight and thaumic vibrations, the closest undead to their location is over the Samwell River. "Who ever it is that has this warding system set up is hellaciously strong, and knows how to weave their shit together." Penelope visibly gathers herself together and steps out of the SUV. The sheer amount of energy that is being poured into the wards is balanced out with emotions. It's a frat house, probably all the keggers and parties that the houses have seen.

Or....she fumbles to put her glasses back on.

It could be the ghosts that have literally hacked their way into the warding singularity and are pouring their personal thaumic energies into it. Whatever, she was a psychometric with a leaning toward technology. The ghosts could just go and do their thing. They'd been there for a lot longer than most ghosts were able to and still keep coherent and non-violent.

Johnson was moving. Oops, that'd show her for getting wrapped up in her head. Falling in behind the man, Penelope is very, _very_ grateful that she was not the one stepping in the line of fire first. A rap on the door of what looked to be the nastiest house on the street, only, it resonated like the warding schematic. Lots of love poured into the place. The roof over the porch just screamed of being the staging site for many a bowl of pot getting smoked. The porch itself was a bit beaten up, but much had happened here.

Aaand that was Johnson walking into the house. Penelope followed after him, and was blindsided the moment that she stepped fully through the doorway.

_HausHausHaushi_ _IHausyouwho?_

_Ah, I'm Penelope._

_Penelopeniceyoutalknotlikeothers_

Well shit. A sentient, magical brownstone, only it's on freaking Greek Row. Her life.

~*~

"Sir?" Johnson looks at the psychometric who had accompanied him. "We just need to get them out there. The Haus doesn't like what's happening." Penelope is not her normal self. Eyes have gone wide and glowy behind glasses, voice resonating a little more than normal.

"Garcia!"

The woman shook her head. "I'm fine Sir, it's just a little feedback from Haus. You need to get them all out there. Dex and Chowder...."

~*~

_BittyBitsEricBittleDickeygogogoGOBITTY!_

"And Bitty?" Johnson looked at her askance. "Er, Eric Bittle?"

Penelope had the dubious pleasure of watching her composed boss completely lose his cool. _ChillNOchillBRAH!_ And there was a sentient, magical frat house _(Haus!)_ chirping up in the worst bro talk she has heard since she was in college.

~*~

Bitty is in the kitchen, making sure that the poor girl that the Haus has overwhelmed is at least sitting down. There are words that Bitty will be having with Haus about personal space and boudaries, but seeing as there is a literal incursion sitting not that far from their doorsteps, he supposes that it can be postponed.

"So, let me get this straight." Dex is leaning against the counter with an eye at keeping SSA Johnson in his sight lines. "There's an incursion happening between the river and the Pond, and because Samwell's been a Null, there are no Enforcers stationed at the outpost." He drops a disgusted sigh. “This is what I get for not making Claire map out ley lines before I send in my acceptance letter. C’mon Chow, we ought to get our crap.”

In a sleek slide off the counter, Chowder follows Dex down to the basement. He wasn't truly surprised. There had been a little, (okay, a lot), of fanboying when he had realized that the blond leading the Taddy Tour was a  _Bittle._ And not just that, but he had  _Phelps_ in him too. Chowder had mellowed a wee bit, but his and Dex's Comp Sci get-togethers were in all honesty at least 23% geeking out over the Bittle/Phelps family. 

Lostin in his thoughts, Cowder ran right into Dexs back at the bottom of the stairs. "I'm sorry Dex, that was totally my bad-," his apologetic words trailed off as he took in what the basement had turned into. 

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," Dex groused. The middle of the basement had exploded into an intricate knot of red and white. "Let's just, grab the boxes and get prepped." Casting a baleful glower at the light show going on, Dex stacked two boxes in Chowder's arms and sent him back up, grabbing the remaining one that had been sitting next to the dryer. He hissed, "I'll take care of you later Haus," and marched purposefully back up the stairs. He almost turned around when he heard the mental raspberry and giggles, but Bitty had seen him at the top and was beckoning him in. 

"There you are. I need you to look through those and find me the 9mm and .223 ammo boxes. And while you're at that, are my knives in there? I can't seem to find the bandoleer that Coach got me for Christmas." Bitty turned from the stacks of honest to God  _lembas bread_ , making sure that his hands were flour free before reaching into his hammer space.

How much of a spark did the man have!?

~*~

Tony lurched forward with a gasp. "What the hell man? That shit didn't happen here?" A thrum of  _smugheeheewhat'sittoyou?_ echoed in his head, and the man winced. 

"You just bonded to me. Ugh, messing with shower curtains and locking me out of my room is one thing, but really?" He shook his head. "So what. Bitty and Chowder and Dex all went out and kicked ass with the LAX players and the volleyball team, and that's when Samwell got it's ratings back. And when you became on of the sentients."

A _pphbbt_ rang in  his head, and the red came back. And so did the memory ward. For Christ's sake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy snap, let's talk about what a little shit Haus is. Like, a smol ball of squirrely energy that has no place in my brain, but ze's already there. ARgh!!!!
> 
> Hit me up on tumblr! 
> 
> twitter-hikari.tumblr.com/
> 
> ETA: had to fix stupid backdating thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Come flail at me over this! I am twitter-hikari over at tumblr.


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